By Lisa Twaronite Sone

I had expected her.

I knew exactly who she was, when she came wandering into the old school one day.

She saw my janitor’s uniform and realized I belonged there, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. They never are.

“Can I help you?” I asked as kindly as possible, putting down my mop.

“I…I work in the office tower next door,” she said haltingly, but of course I already knew that.

I had seen the young woman with the long hair standing next to the window, every day around lunch time, eating her apple and enjoying the view from the 20th floor. She was always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

But then one sunny day, she looked down, and noticed them — the children, in the abandoned swimming pool on the roof.

After that, I saw her watching them, unable to believe her eyes. She didn’t tell anyone else what she saw, of course. They never do.

“This building…” she was asking me now, her voice slightly trembling. “When did they stop using it as a school?”

“More than 30 years ago,” I said. “There weren’t enough kids anymore, in this part of the city. So now it’s used for city offices, and storage.”

“There’s an old pool on the roof…” she started to say, but she didn’t know how to put into words what she wanted to say next.

So I helped her out.

“You see the children.”

“YES!” she said, in a loud exclamation of relief that surprised both of us.

“Most people can’t see them,” I said, “but you’re not the first. And probably not the last. You thought maybe it was just the way the sunlight was hitting the water, right?”

She nodded.

“But then you saw their faces. There weren’t any kids standing around the pool, and yet in the water, you could clearly see their reflections? Nine of them, and then ten, right?”

“I counted twelve,” she said. “Who are they? Are they ghosts? Did they drown in the pool?”

“No one ever drowned in this building’s pool,” I said. “I asked the people in charge about that. I don’t think those kids are alive anymore, but they all died somewhere else, not in the pool.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Look, all I know is that no one died in the pool. And in the 18 years I’ve been working here, you’re the ninth person who came to ask about kids in the water who aren’t really there. I can see them sometimes, too, and you know what I think?”

She didn’t encourage me to continue, but I did, anyway.

“I think that when people die, their strongest memories live on. When these people died, some of their happy childhood memories remained here. And that’s what we see now, in the water. These memories.”

This seemed to satisfy her. She nodded slowly, thanked me, and walked away.

I didn’t tell her everything. I never do. I didn’t want to upset her by telling her that usually, the only people who can see the children are those about to join them.

In fact, the only exception to this so far is me — I’m still here, and I don’t know why. The other eight people, though….they all passed on, within a few weeks of talking to me.

And I can still see all eight of them, too. Well, it’s nine now.

On bright sunny days, I can go up to the roof, and there’s the line of kids reflected in the murky green rainwater, in their old-fashioned swimsuits and bathing caps.

There’s 15 of them now. Their faces are laughing, and they’re eager to jump in — who wouldn’t be, on a bright, sunny day? It’s definitely a happy childhood memory they would keep for the rest of their lives, strong enough to linger on after them.

Then I look up at the office towers, and I can see all of the faces reflected in the windows. There’s that nice old man who was hit by a car, and there’s that chubby, middle-aged mother who dropped dead of a heart attack.

The weekend after she came to the school, the woman with the long hair was lost at sea, in a boating accident. I saw her picture on the news.

Now whenever the sun is shining, I see her there at her window on the 20th floor, eating her apple. She’s always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

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For an interview with Lisa about her writing with Reuters, see here.